BACKGROUND

 LOCAL FORMAL NAME     CHOSUN - MINJUJUUI - INMIN - KONGHWAGUK

 MAPS

  HISTORY

 Korea was occupied by Japan in 1905 following the Russo-Japanese War. Following World War II, Korea was split, with the northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist domination. After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the US-backed republic in the southern portion by force, North Korea under its founder President KIM Il Sung adopted a policy of ostensible diplomatic and economic "self-reliance". KIM's son, the current ruler KIM Jong Il, was officially designated as KIM's future successor in 1980 and assumed a growing political and managerial role until his father's death in 1994. After decades of economic mismanagement and resource misallocation, the North since the mid-1990s has relied heavily on international food aid to feed its population while continuing to expend resources to maintain an army of about 1 million. North Korea's long-range missile development and research into nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and massive conventional armed forces are of major concern to the international community. In December 2002, following revelations it was pursuing a nuclear weapons program based on enriched uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States to freeze and ultimately dismantle its existing plutonium-based program, North Korea expelled monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and in January 2003 declared its withdrawal from the international Non-Proliferation Treaty. In mid-2003 Pyongyang announced it had completed the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods (to extract weapons-grade plutonium) and was developing a "nuclear deterrent." From August 2003 to June 2004 North Korea participated in six-party talks with the China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States to resolve the stalemate over its nuclear programs

      <THE LEADERS ARE THE SUN OF THE NATIONAL AND MANKIND>

                         KIM IL SUNG                                                       KIM JONG IL                                           KO YOUNG HEE

                      FOUNDER OF DPRK                                                        LEADER OF DPRK                                             KIM JONG IL'S WIFE

  CHIEF OF STATE : GENERAL KIM JONG IL (picture presented below)

           If you want to see the multimedia about gerneral KIM JONG IL's deplomatic activities, click HERE

 GEOGRAPHY bordering China, South Korea, Russia

Size: North Korea occupies about 55 percent of total land area of the Korean Peninsula, or approximately 120,410 square kilometers of land area; it is about the size of the state of New York or Louisiana.

Topography: Approximately 80 percent of land area mountain ranges and uplands. All mountains on peninsula over 2,000 meters high are in North Korea.

 GOVERNMENT TYPE: dictatorship

•  CAPITAL: Pyongyang
•  ECONOMY: One of the world's most centrally planned and isolated economies.

                          Currently suffering deperate economic conditions.

MILITARY BRANCHES: North Korea People's Army, Navy, Air Force

MILITARY MANPOWER AVAILABILITY: age 17 to 49: 5,851,801

MILITARY MANPOWER FIT FOR MILITARY SERVICE: age 17-49: 4810,831

MILITARY EXPENDITURES: $5,217.4 million (FY02)

INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES: Illegal North Korean migrants going over to China and South Korea

  source:www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

                    NORTH KOREAN NATIONAL FLAG   

       MOK-RAN THE NORTH KOREAN NATIONAL FLOWER

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES: Based on the quagmire of the development of nuclear weapons